25 APRIL

1899 -  Gen. Antonio Luna y Novicio, the Chief of Operations of the Philippine forces informs Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy about the fierce gun battles between Filipino troops and imperialist enemy soldiers in the province of Bulacan nearly two months into the bloody and protracted  Philippine-American War (1899-1914);  Gen. Luna reports on:  the death of 200 Filipinos and 700 Americans, spirited resistance of Bagbag's defenders until the lack of ammunition forced their retreat; and the successful repulsion of imperialist forces in Calumpit followed by their strategic destruction of military bridges and abandonment of said town; the lost Battle of Bagbag River (April 25) is controversial because Gen. Luna left the battle front to punish Gen. Tomas Mascardo, then in Pampanga, for refusing to heed his orders--ultimately resulting to the decisive defeat of the Filipinos who were left under Gen. Gregorio del Pilar under the hands of the imperialist forces of America's Gen. Arthur MacArthur although both sides suffered heavy losses; the U.S. decided to invade the Southeast Asian nation, a former Spanish colony that revolted and declared independence, over its rich natural resources, including "mountains of coal" and its strategic importance to American commercial domination; the Filipino-American War was deliberately and secretly precipitated by the imperialist American military under the vile pre-arranged plan of US President William McKinley in the bid to push the American Senate into approving the ridiculous Treaty of Paris wherein Spain supposedly 'cedes' its former colony to the US  following the Peace Protocol forged a day before the infamous Mock Battle of Manila on August 13, 1898 as part of the new and the old powers' imperialistic, shoddy and detestably anti-democratic deal.

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